Sub-Editing

The ability to take a writer’s efforts and improve those words is a great skill – and it’s a lot more than simply running the text through a grammar or spell-checker. It means sharpening, enhancing and refreshing those words without altering the meaning.

This sub-editing course is for anyone who has to check or oversee another’s work, whether it is a report, news story, press release or piece of research.

Why choose PA Training?

Recognised training

PA Training is the training division of the national news agency for the UK and Ireland, with a client list which includes every national news provider across every national newspaper, TV broadcast and radio.

Industry experts

As Europe’s leading training company for journalism, multimedia and public relations, our courses are only ever taught by trainers who are thought leaders who are working professionals in their specialism.

Course outline

The essentials of good editing

The great skill in editing is taking someone’s best effort and improving it – without them noticing that you’ve made changes. We show you the art of “invisible editing”.

Ensuring the grammar, spelling and punctuation are correct

For most of us, grammar is a dimly remembered thing. But it reflects on your organisation if these aspects are wrong. We’ll sort out all those tricky areas that you might not be totally confident about, from starting a sentence with “and” to using apostrophes.

House style

Every organisation should have a style that creates written material in a consistent way. Are you going to write ten or 10, June 10 or 10 June, James’s coat or James’ hat, cafe or café, the NHS is or the NHS are?

Structure and flow

All too often, writing is merely a series of disconnected sentences. We’ll show you how to structure writing to capture a reader’s attention and keep them reading.

The common mistakes

There are certain errors that crop up time and time again, from when to use practice and practise, words that are pronounced the same but spelt in different ways and failing to write in a way that’s right for the readership.

Making changes

There’s an assumption that editing means changing. That’s not true. You need to remember: changes for something better, not something else. We look at when you need to make changes and the areas that consistently cause problems.

Capturing a reader’s attention

With a wealth of online material to hand, readers have become more selective – and they’re reading less. How can you capture and hold their attention from the first few words?

Writing eye-catching headlines

A dull headline doesn’t encourage me to read further, while interesting headlines play a vital role in encouraging readers to find out more. We show you some of the core things to consider when writing headlines, whether in print or online.

Proof-reading the final version

Proof-reading isn’t merely a matter of checking text against the original. There are more than 20 factors you need to take in to account in a final read before publication. We show you what these are.

Course rating

We’re proud that delegates score the content of our most popular courses 9.3 out of 10 on average

Highly recommended

We rely on feedback from each delegate to help us to continue as the leading training provider for Reporting and Writing

What our clients tell us

“Interesting discussions that I will take back and try to use on a practical level. Reminded me of some aspects of the job I had almost forgotten about.”